1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to noninvasive systems for monitoring blood glucose and other difficult to detect blood constituent concentrations, such as therapeutic drugs, drugs of abuse, carboxyhemoglobin, Methemoglobin, and cholesterol.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, many systems have been developed for monitoring blood characteristics. For example, devices have been developed which are capable of determining such blood characteristics as blood oxygenation, glucose concentration, and other blood characteristics. However, significant difficulties have been encountered when attempting to determine blood glucose concentration accurately using noninvasive blood monitoring systems such as by means of spectroscopic measurement.
The difficulty in determining blood glucose concentration accurately may be attributed to several causes. One of the significant causes is that blood glucose is typically found in very low concentrations within the bloodstream (e.g., on the order of 100 to 1,000 times lower than hemoglobin) so that such low concentrations are difficult to detect noninvasively, and require a very high signal-to-noise ratio. Additionally, with spectroscopic methods, the optical characteristics of glucose are very similar to those of water which is found in a very high concentration within the blood. Thus, where optical monitoring systems are used, the optical characteristics of water tend to obscure the characteristics of optical signals due to glucose within the bloodstream. Furthermore, since each individual has tissue, bone and unique blood properties, each measurement typically requires calibration for the particular individual.
In an attempt to accurately measure blood glucose levels within the bloodstream, several methods have been used. For example, one method involves drawing blood from the patient and separating the glucose from the other constituents within the blood. Although fairly accurate, this method requires drawing the patient's blood, which is less desirable than noninvasive techniques, especially for patients such as small children or anemic patients. Furthermore, when blood glucose monitoring is used to control the blood glucose level, blood must be drawn three to six times per day, which may be both physically and psychologically traumatic for a patient. Other methods contemplate determining blood glucose concentration by means of urinalysis or some other method which involves pumping or diffusing body fluid from the body through vessel walls or using other body fluids such as tears or sweat. However, such an analysis tends to be less accurate than a direct measurement of glucose within the blood, since the urine, or other body fluid, has passed through the kidneys (or skin in the case of sweat). This problem is especially pronounced in diabetics. Furthermore, acquiring urine and other body fluid samples is often inconvenient.
As is well known in the art, different molecules, typically referred to as constituents, contained within the medium have different optical characteristics so that they are more or less absorbent at different wavelengths of light. Thus, by analyzing the characteristics of the fleshy medium containing blood at different wavelengths, an indication of the composition of the blood in the fleshy medium may be determined.
Spectroscopic analysis is based in part upon the Beer-Lambert law of optical characteristics for different elements. Briefly, Beer-Lambert's law states that the optical intensity of light through any medium comprising a single substance is proportional to the exponent of the product of path length through the medium times the concentration of the substance within the medium times the extinction coefficient of the substance. That is, EQU I=I.sub.o e.sup.-(pl.multidot.c.multidot..epsilon.) (1)
where pl represents the path length through the medium, c represents the concentration of the substance within the medium, .epsilon. represents the absorption (extinction) coefficient of the substance and I.sub.o is the initial intensity of th light from the light source. For optical media which have several constituents, the optical intensity of the light received from the illuminated medium is proportional to the exponent of the path length through the medium times the concentration of the first substance times the optical absorption coefficient associated with the first substance, plus the path length times the concentration of the second substance times the optical absorption coefficient associated with the second substance, etc. That is, EQU I=I.sub.o e.sup.-(pl.multidot.c.sbsp.1.sup..multidot..epsilon..sbsp.1.sup.+pl.multid ot.c.sbsp.2.sup..multidot..epsilon..sbsp.2.sup.+etc.) (2)
where .epsilon..sub.n represents the optical absorption (extinction) coefficient of the n.sup.th constituent and c.sub.n represents the concentration of the n.sup.th constituent.